March is couples communication month at Well Said. We are sharing our insights to achieving strong, healthy relationships.

It's a good idea to pause and reflect about your relationship from time-to-time to ensure you and your partner are communicating effectively and that you are both satisfied and happy with your dynamic.

This blog post shares three main pillars of couples communication and provides some helpful food-for-thought for people in romantic relationships.

Read on!

Get Back to the Basics with Small Talk

Not every conversation has to be saturated in depth with analysis and philosophical debates or plans for the future. Strive for balance in your couple’s conversational style by incorporating some light and easy small talk. Sure, you can exchange details about your days or pass along the latest office/family/friend gossip, but if you really want to make an impact, create new memories together and engage in talk about those experiences — shared experiences.

Share what you love about each other

You wake up to find your lunch, packed and ready to go.

You dream of their embrace after a few days apart or a long day at work.

You love their sympathetic nature, especially when you’re feeling under the weather!

You can’t help but smile when you notice those adorable, bare, familiar legs as your partner rummages through the fridge.

You love hearing that soothing voice that keeps you calm and centred.

What do you appreciate about your partner? Get comfortable sharing it!

The smallest steps toward expressing gratitude and appreciation will reinforce why you chose to be with this person and will make them feel loved and acknowledged. Not to mention, an action that is positively acknowledged is more likely to re-occur!

Remember that you're on the same team

It can be easy to get carried away with trying to make your point understood, especially when emotions are involved. Check in to see if you’re using the best communication strategies when dealing with conflict with your loved one.

A sharper, more “sibilant” production of “s” has become associated with the speech of gay men. The lack of distinction between disorder vs. difference has lead many to associate any type of “s” variation in a male speaker with assumptions of that speaker’s sexuality. However, real lisps, as functional speech disorders, have no correlation with sexual orientation.

What similar characteristics do Drew Barrymore, Micheal Phelps, and Barbara Walters have in common? Aside from their respective fame, they all share a functional speech impediment, otherwise known as a lisp.